Creative Chronicles: Make The Time

How’s the new year treating you so far?

This year, I’m thinking beyond career goals because while those are great, it’s important to nurture personal interests as well.

A personal goal of mine is to get better at photography. I have no interest in doing it professionally but for as many photos as I share both here and on Instagram, I want to make my content the best it can be.

My dirty little secret is that even though I’ve been carrying a camera with me on a near-daily basis for the last 20+ years (I was always the person in school who took photos of all my friends and got doubles printed at the 1 hour developer to hand out), my process was very point-and-shoot. Capturing moments was more important than mastering the specific settings — and my camera was always set to auto.

Finally, on Saturday I blocked out an entire day to shoot new photos for Branch. I’ve never taken a full day off before to take photos — everything was always rushed. We had an ice storm and the sun was setting quickly. I had a few more flat lays to shoot but the lighting was overcast and shadowy. In desperation, I turned the camera settings to manual, adjusted the ISO and in that minute of fiddling, my photos got infinitely better.

The settings weren’t even that difficult to master — I’d just never given myself the time to explore them.

It’s a bit embarrassing to realize it took so little to make such a big improvement.

My suggestion for you is to think about what you want to master this year….and then actually give yourself the time to do it. No rushing. No set outcomes. Just pure exploration.

Creative journaling is so much fun — I miss those days of writing in a journal and filling pages with new ideas and thoughts. I also used to do collages in a big notebook I called the Fashion Notebook and it’s so cool to flip through and look back at what was inspiring me 5, 10 and even 15 years ago. And blogging is so much more fun without all the pressure, anyway — excited to see what you do!

My main goal this year is to get back to doing what I do best, Design. I am a Graphic Designer who got out of the business after getting burned out about 6 years ago. My life is just not as fun without it, I am working on getting my portfolio back into fighting shape and this time doing freelance work instead of quitting my fulltime job, I want to be able to pick and choose what I work on, instead of being forced to create dull direct mail and coupon books. I have so many awesome talents and this year I am making damn sure that I use them!

Heather, good for you! And I like that you’re going back into design on your terms — there’s no one way to make it happen. Freelance on the side is great because as you said, you’re not tied to taking on any work you don’t necessarily like. I did that for many years and it worked well. Very, very excited for you!

Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Shauna, a graphic designer and entrepreneur. I spend my days as the Creative Director of Branch, a boutique design studio. This is my personal blog, which has been going strong since 2007. I'm obsessed with shoes, llamas and traveling. Read more…

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